Miles of Mountains
by luckness
Summary: Katniss leaves the games as a sole victor, submerged in the thrill of killing. Not knowing exactly what to do with her violent outbursts, Haymitch opts to put her on morphling. While on the drug, she meets Cato, a former victor with a bad rep, who resolves to help her regain her footing. OOC. AU.
1. Chapter 1

A Quick movement flashed across her peripheral and her knees bent into ready position. Bouncing slightly on her toes, Katniss trained her eyes on the trees, turning her sword loosely in her right hand—her left flexing in anticipation. Rustling grass caught her attention and she weaved herself through the air, dodging a stab from the boy who stood behind her.

The wet rip of sword through flesh stilled in the air before dropping thickly into silence, the only remnant of it reverberating through the sword and vibrating though her body. And as she felt the boy's blood soak into her clothing, she let out a single vaulted laugh. The muted thud as the boy collapsed into the dry dirt and matted grass remained was already behind her as she re-sheathed the sword and walked into the trees at a leisurely pace.

Looking up at a tree as she reached the forest, she spied a camera, its lens shifting to focus on her face. With fire in her eyes and a smirk quirking up her lips, Katniss bore into the eyes of Panem and spoke.

"It's much more thrilling than hunting though, isn't it?"

A cannon sounded behind her, signalling the death of the boy who lay as a mere heap in the matted grass of the clearing, and a hovercraft dropped down to pick up his shell.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the victor of the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen!" boomed the speakers.

Picking up her bow from where she had left it at the base of a tree, Katniss slung it across her back and stalked back to the cornucopia. The peacekeepers swarmed her, trying to inject her with various fluids whilst she fought to push through them to the hovercraft. Removing the bow from her shoulder, she pulled an arrow from its canister and watched as it sliced through the air and into the forehead of a peacekeeper. She looked around to the rest, making sure that her message had been received and proceeded to walk through the swarm of now silent peacekeepers to the waiting hovercraft.

* * *

Gale had told her before she left that killing would come much more easily if she thought of it as a hunt. But he didn't know. Hunting had been necessary, this was fun. You couldn't toy with a deer before you killed it; you couldn't watch the light leave its eyes or the movement fall from its limbs. A deer just dropped. The other tributes, however, had struggled, clawed, screamed, threatened and begged. A deer couldn't provoke, it could only drop.

When they touched ground in the Capitol and walked down the ramp, Katniss growled at the paparazzi that probed her about stupid things like her predictions for the upcoming fashion season, or how she would next be donning her iconic flames. Peacekeepers surrounded her from every angle, shielding her from the flashing lights of the cameras and the hurried questions from brightly coloured reporters. They guided her though the crowd to a car with ominous tinted windows and shoved her inside, sending her to the floor of the vehicle and firmly closing the door. Picking herself up, Katniss slammed her fist against the window as the car began to move, carrying her away from the cameras and fans.

"Easy there, sweetheart," said a gruff voice from the front of the car, "you're home."


	2. Chapter 2

Haymitch had seen victors come out of the arena in bad condition, but Katniss was another thing entirely. He hadn't seen that coming. She had a few scars and cuts here and there, of course, but what irked him the most was the wily flare that inhabited her gaze. There was something untamed and feral in her eyes that hadn't been there before, and it shook him to the core. This new side of her was animalistic, even. Granted, she was ruthless in the games—again, he hadn't counted on that, entirely. Everyone knew of her conviction to get back to her little sister, but when she had killed Peeta, along with all of the other careers in one night, something inside of Haymitch that he had thought dead churned in its grave—genuine concern; that was no longer the girl that had been sent into the arena. Even still, the intensity of this state that she was in didn't seem as severe on screen as it did directly in front of him now.

As she stared at him from the back of the car, he took in her appearance. She was of seam blood and that still showed, what with her grey eyes and dark skin, but she was ragged and unkempt—the peacekeepers obviously hadn't had much luck cleaning her up. Her hair was fraying from her brain in every which way and her clothes were dirty and rumpled—definitely not a sight that the Capitol would deem worthy of a victor.

"Where are we going?" Katniss' voice shook him from his assessment.

"We're going to have to clean you up before we go to see Snow"

Her voice surprised him even more than her demeanour. She had a bite in her tone that gave him chills—a nice irony, he supposed, for the girl on fire to carry such a verbal frostiness.

"Why? He doesn't like the look of 'victor'?"

"No, but I don't think anyone would like the look of you right now, sweetheart. Victor or not"

Something like a threat passed through her eyes before she turned her gaze out the window again. Haymitch wasn't dying to find out what was going on in her pretty little head.

"When I came out of the arena, they made a whole deal about cleaning me up. Injected me with everything they could find. I can see they didn't try so much with you," he said, trying to break a heavy silence.

"They tried," was all he got.

"Their standards must be slipping, then"

He expected some sort of mock-glare in retaliation to that one, but maybe it was too wishful in thinking that she harboured any of her old tendencies. Instead, she giggled and flashed him a twisted smirk—the same one that she had given Panem as she left that boy incapacitated and drenched in his own blood in the grass of the clearing.

"I sent an arrow into one of their heads"

Just how casually she was able to say that spoke mountains to him.

Haymitch had seen the interviews with Enobaria after her victory for District 2. She was a career, she was ruthless, she had ripped out the throat of her final competitor with her teeth in a primal display of psychosis, but even she had found little to no humour in it—no matter how pleased she may have been. Katniss was already giggling and she hadn't been out of the arena for more than half of a day. He hadn't ever heard her giggle before, even when she was at home—not even with that tall boy that brought back game with her. There was something dangerously wrong in her head and Haymitch had to admit that it scared him a little.

"Well," he said, clearing his throat, "Cinna's gonna make you as attractive as he can get you for now. Snow's having a big party for you over at his estate"

She kept looking out the window, not acknowledging him at all.

"So you're gonna have to be on your best behaviour. Little hint: try not to look like you're going to kill everyone" he said, hoping that it would get through to her even a little.

"They tried to kill me"

"Maybe that's how you and I see it, but you know they don't"

"I will look at them how I want"

"I know you will, sweetheart," he conceded with a sigh.

After another long amount of time travelled in silence—that to Haymitch seemed to stretch on forever—the car finally stopped in front of their building. It was a tall, glass building that Effie had assured him was 'to die for,' so he had let her arrange for them all to live there, not really caring and not wanting to deal with her huffiness if he had said no.

He walked around the car and opened Katniss' door, letting her out. She walked straight for the door of the building without giving it a single glance and pulled open the door before the doorman was able to reach for it. Following her in, Haymitch saw her waiting at the stairs.

"What's the flat number?" she asked in a monotone.

"13B, but sweetheart, there's an elevator"

After a bit of convincing, Katniss begrudgingly allowed Haymitch to lead her over to the elevators that took them up to the flat. All the way up she kept her eyes on him, her muscles tensed like she was expecting him to attack her.

"Why so opposed to the elevator?" he asked her. He was still hoping that somewhere in there was the spitfire that had given his district hope, instead of this forest fire that seemingly threatened to burn down anything it touched.

"Being in close proximity will get you killed faster," she said, again in her new monotone.

She did let him leave the elevator first when the door slid open, however, and she followed him down the hallway to their door.

Cinna and Effie were sitting at the dining room table when they walked in, along with the rest of the brightly coloured styling team. Two of the stylists (the green one and another one with big hair—Haymitch didn't know their names) rushed her and wrapped her in an embrace. If they hadn't seen the fully wild state that the girl was in, then that was their grievance, not his, so when Katniss grabbed the arm of the green one and threw her hard into the wall and spun to kick the other one into the crowd of gaping stylists, Haymitch was only a bit surprised and noted not to touch her in the near future. They were lucky that hand-to-hand had not been her strong suit in the arena.

The group of them scattered across the flat, only Cinna staying at the table, giving Katniss a terrified look. Effie however, stood from the table in rage.

"Katniss Everden! That is no was to treat such kind people!" she squealed, but was silenced by a threatening glare from Katniss who was visibly sinking further into a familiar arena-mentality, her fingers twitching and her eyes scanning the other people in the room.

"Effie, just step back from the girl and let her be" Haymitch said as Effie slowly retreated to her seat.

"Let her come" Katniss said from beside him with that familiar twisted smirk, "see if she can fight me and keep her stupid wig on. I'd love to see her try."

Effie shrieked at this and backed further into the table; this was escalating quickly and unfavourably. Haymitch stepped back himself, not wanting to be too close to the growingly hostile girl. This was going to be an issue, he could tell; she was provoked by even the slightest conflict and it sent her into full on battle-mode. He looked around at the others in the flat: half of the stylists had escaped into other rooms and Effie had taken to hiding behind the table now. Cinna however, had stepped up and was approaching Katniss; he seemed to be whispering soothing words to Katniss who was crouching further into a position to attack. Before Haymitch could voice any opposition, the man had reached out his hand and placed it on Katniss' shoulder, and again, before Haymitch could give any sort of warning, Katniss had pulled a knife from her boot and plunged it into the man's side.

The Peacekeepers really hadn't done a good job in getting her ready to leave the arena, had they? She still had a knife on her.

This sent the remaining stylists into a full-blown frenzy and Effie stood again, this time in horror, but Haymitch could only stare at Katniss who still stood there with her hand thrusting the knife forward. She had a crooked grin on her face this time and a dangerous glint in her eyes as she watched the life begin to drain from Cinna's gold rimmed ones. Before he had time to think, he had lurched forward and grabbed her, struggling to keep his grip as she fought against him. As Cinna fell back onto the carpet, Effie began to scream.

"Call the Peacekeepers!" he yelled over her various times before she had she had calmed enough to move to the phone.

Within a minute a swarm of Peacekeepers was breaking through their door and grabbing the girl from Haymitch's arms. One of them stuck a needle in her arm as she writhed, and her fight calmed little by little until she was being hoisted out the door, unconscious.

"We'll be taking her to the medical centre down the street" one of them told him.

Haymitch nodded, his eyes never leaving Katniss as they carried her out of the flat. He had seen the frantic, lethal look in her eyes as the Peacekeepers had wrestled her down. He couldn't have her feeling so affronted all the time—it would push her even further over the edge. With this realization, Haymitch found himself giving the Peacekeeper one direction he never though he would give:

"If she tries to fight when she comes to, keep her on morphling. It should keep her calm enough" he said solemnly.

The Peacekeeper nodded and followed the rest of them out of the flat, the group in front of him carrying Cinna away on a stretcher.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," Haymitch said to the now empty hallway.

He was beginning to wish that he wasn't so sober at the moment.


	3. Chapter 3

The woods in the arena didn't smell like the ones at home—that was the first thing she had noticed when she was still in the games. They were as green and concealing, but the animals that sprinted through those trees were targeting her as much as she was targeting them. This time though, as she stood in a grassy clearing, even the woods of the arena were chirping with innocent life and the promise of dinner.

She saw two figures emerging from the trees and cocked her bow, aiming at her incoming company. She thought she recognized Peeta's face in one of them, but his features looked foreign as he approached her. He was too blonde, too tall, too secure, and despite his obvious strength, he looked nothing like the baker's son whose eyes were too young and whose appearance was lessened by naivety.

The other was a man with hair white as the rose that graced his lapel and whose eyes crinkled at the corners with grandfatherly kindness that willed Katniss to lower her bow. Her posture began to slacken as she looked into the man's eyes—his gaze of weathered knowledge beckoning her in.

Her bow began to lower and her fight began to lessen as his eyes continued to bore into hers.

Commotion from the blonde boy who had emerged with him from the woods broke Katniss from her trance. He lunged himself between Katniss and the rose laden man and lifted her bow back into position for her. He turned to her then with a challenge in his eyes and dared her to take up arms against the man in front of her.

The forest around them rustled and as she found herself down wind of the kind-eyed man, all she could think was that he smelled of deceit.

"Fight."

And the scene began to dissipate.

* * *

Though it seemed like anvils were lying over her eyelids, Katniss fought to pull herself out of sleep, her eyes adjusting to the light as she fought to open them all the way. As she stared with wide, visionless eyes at the glaring white ceiling above her, willing her retinas to comply, her surroundings began to fade into clarity.

The world spun around her. She moved her head to the side and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to regain her self with little avail. From what she could tell, she was in a Capitol hospital—that would explain all of the white, bright lights. As she opened her eyes again she saw a familiar figure sitting in a chair next to her. As the figure stood, she took in that she was apparently horizontal. Her head continued spinning as the figure bent to brush her cheek; she squeezed her eyes shut again at the contact. His touch erupted on her skin and sent waves of uneasy coldness across her body. Her senses were going wild, her mind working in a dizzied frenzy trying to take everything. Behind her mental commotion, though she caught a familiar scent that made her recoil from the figure's touch.

Roses.

The man from her dream—had it been a dream?

White hair.

She knew that the man standing above her was President Snow before she even pulled her eyes back open. She struggled momentarily to sit up, but upon realizing that she was restrained to the bed she gave into the waves of dizziness and calmed her limbs. Katniss looked up at him blankly, barely able to recognize his face as her vision swelled and contracted, stretched, shrunk and spun.

"Such a pretty girl. What a shame," he said in a mocking tone.

Katniss tried to reply but her voice caught in her throat. Her words came out as strangled rasps and she resorted to glaring at him to the best of her ability, still unable to figure which of the three of him she could now see was the real one. He reached down to touch her cheek again and she snarled at him, her throat ripping with a primal growl.

"But an animal none the less" the President sneered at her, "I hope you realize what you're putting yourself into, Ms. Everdeen"

She gazed back at him with clouded eyes.

"Though I suppose you don't, do you" he continued with a mocking edge, "that would be the morphling"

As she stared at him still standing above her, the image of him rippling and rebounding off of the hospital lights, Katniss barely comprehended what he was saying to her.

"Even the mightiest fall to substance, don't they?" Snow said, his gaze falling somewhere on the other side of the room.

"I wouldn't exactly say she fell though, did she?" spoke another voice, leaded with agitation.

Katniss knew this voice. It sent color blasting across her vision and a tingle across her brain—she knew this voice. It was warm and familiar—it sounded like solace.

"Well, I would say that's rather subjective, wouldn't you?"

"Subjective my ass. You're keeping her on the stuff, there was no choice on her part," the voice growled back.

Katniss strained to look past Snow for the person with the voice like home and warmth, but her consciousness was drowning in the drug now flowing through her veins. Her head hit her pillow again and she looked back at Snow, her eyes growing heavy again.

Snow caught Katniss' waning gaze before smirking back at the other side of the room once again.

"I cannot permit violence among my victors. They are to set an example for society, not to throw it into turmoil. Either way, she seems to have forfeited her choice," he said before exiting the room with a swift gait.

Katniss began to fall further into her dizziness as she heard the voice from across the room rise again.

"Fuck," it said with a force.

Footsteps echoed and bounced off of the corners of her mind, pin-balling against her eyes and sending her head back into a spinning frenzy. A face appeared over her again and she vaguely registered it as Haymitch. She let a sloppy grin creep its way onto her face as she submitted further to the dizziness.

_No more man with the white hair_, she thought to herself.

"Sweetheart, are you with me?" the voice said down to her.

And she spilled out of consciousness.

**AN: sorry I haven't updated in so long! One thing lead to another, lead to another, lead to another, etc. etc. BUT! I will start uploading a lot more frequently. I'm thinking once a week should be fine n' dandy! **

**So no Cato yet :( I hope you thought the voice was him for a moment. I kind of did too, but I thought that'd go too fast (plus it just kinda sounded like Haymitch, didn't it? Cato won't sound like that)**

**Super special thanks to Peenis0314 3 you're so constructive and insightful that I don't think I would function without you.**

**Nonetheless, Catoniss to come in the fairly near future.**

**And PLEEEEEASE review! I get a lot of alerts but relatively no reviews! A heard people is a pleased people :)**

**You're all free to go now**


	4. Chapter 4

**I feel like a little piece of s**t. I'm sorry for the false promises to "update soon." This chapter was supposed to be longer but it just kept sitting on my desktop refusing to be completed and every time I opened it, l****ike scornful teenagers, the words cursed at me and jeered me for trying to make the chapter something that it wasn't. So I gave up on trying to make it more than it is. So this is a short snippit just to introduce the non-Katniss part of the plot line. AND I WILL UPDATE SOON FOR SURE THIS TIME. Read now: **

A thick musk hung in the air, undisturbed in its morning stillness. Cato startled awake, sitting up straight in his bed, he panted, dewy and wide eyed, launching into consciousness as his dream faded away. He got little gratification from sleep—that was one of the things that he had dragged out with him from the Games; a small consequence, he thought, for having won—his mind bombarded him with the terrors and the gore of his survival.

Shifting himself back against the headboard, Cato lifted the heels of his hands to his eyes, and rubbed these images from them, welcoming in their heed a new day.

He looked around his room; the walls still as plain as when he moved in, the light of day already filling the room with light, and rested his head back on the headboard. Looking around again, Cato's gaze held warily on the girl lying next to him. Though her arm had undoubtedly been lying on his chest before he woke, it now rested limply on the sheets, her body still curled toward him as if trying to cocoon him in some fathom of intimacy. Looking at her, he rolled his eyes and removed his gaze. He had never understood the fascination that the Capitol people had with cosmetic surgery. This particular girl, or woman, whichever, had this pink skin that looked disgustingly unnatural next to his own—not the worst he had seen, but still, he thought, disgusting nonetheless. He sighed as she began to wake, the mattress moving a bit as she stretched out stagnant joints.

"How long have you been awake?" she drawled out in a thick Capitol accent. She rolled over to face him, lifting her hand to trace down his bare chest. Cato shoved her hand off and rested his head back on the headboard, exhaling a noiseless laugh.

"Feel free to show yourself out," he said, not gratifying her with even a glance.

Cato closed his eyes while the girl lay motionless for a moment, as if trying to gauge his seriousness, before ultimately removing herself from the bed and gathering her clothing before walking out the door.

Tabloids would be in frenzy within a few hours, inducting the pinkish girl as a mark in the running tally of his conquests, and, most likely, once again, comparing his prowess to that of Finnick Odair, as they so loved to do.

Therein was one of the things that still managed to bother him about the attention the media gave him. He was nothing like Finnick. Women didn't choose him out of a catalogue of viable young victors, and Snow of all people sure as hell didn't own him.

Shaking the thought, Cato rose and stretched his arms. Though his list of night terrors often detailed highlights of the massacre he had spearheaded in the arena, they had recently taken a less violent turn—more like he was intruding on someone else's dream than playing out his own. Every night he saw a girl with moody eyes and flowing hair, who gazed questioningly at him from across a nondescript field, almost disappointedly, as if expecting someone else.

Cato wasn't dumb, far from it; he was a finely tuned machine both mentally and physically: both being the product of a life's worth of training. Yet every night, the clarity and detail with which this girl appeared confounded him—like someone else had made her and placed her in his head. He could clearly picture the way that her hair frayed from her braid, or how the grain of the wood that made up her bow was worn in such a way that showed a history of repeated use; the girl herself looked wearied by history, or experience, whichever. Dreams didn't show history—this Cato could attest to. He never saw the past burdens of the other tributes that he encountered in his dreams, often enough he couldn't even recall their faces.

With this in mind, he made his way to the kitchen, the girl following him still. Cato couldn't help but be plagued by her—she was too real to be of entirely his own conception.

**I have a direction for this story, I do, but I'd just like to hear where and/or how any of you think that Katniss and Cato should meet...just out of curiosity. Maybe someone will sway me. I'm thinking it will be at least a little bit longer before it all comes together-a few more chapters or something...BUT please comment with feedback should you have any :)**

**Luckness**


	5. Chapter 5

Her head was heavy on the pillow, gravity giving her nothing to work with as she struggled to pull herself up. The room spun, the ceiling panels prancing about her line of vision, the light effectively blinding her. Sitting up, the world turned upright for what seemed to be the first time in years. Her head ached and her eyes burned as they met the dry air of the real world. She wasn't sure exactly how long she had been out, her mind had been swaying in and out of heavy fog for what could have been hours, days, months—she had no frame of reference.

Katniss held her head in her hands as clarity began to retake her mind—the lifting of a perpetual fog that had been plaguing her sleep. A familiar field, an unfamiliar boy and stoically poised Snow continued to appear behind her eyelids as she attempted to rub the last shreds of her dream away.

A noise in the hall startled her and her head jolted up, triggering a sharp pain that shot from her forehead to her neck. Katniss moved herself silently from the bed and against the wall into the defensive, the arena-instincts coming back to her forefront.

She scanned the room for an exit, noting that the windows on either side of her were sealed shut—this was odd, she thought. They had her imprisoned in this room with no defense.

The door opening across the room triggered Katniss from this realization as she trained her eyes on her visitor. She sunk further into a crouch, ready to launch herself from her position against the wall. As the door swung open, Haymitch came into view.

"How's about we drop the lethality, Sweetheart," he drawled, standing his ground in the doorframe.

Katniss found herself relaxing into an upright position despite her own wishes. He was her ally, she supposed—dangerous albeit, but an ally.

"Where are we?" Katniss's eyes flicked around the room; it was sterile and white, plain for the most part—it looked nothing like the gaudily furnished Capitol buildings, but somehow sill too clean to be a district 12 building either. Was it another district?

"'Ospital, Sweetheart"

"Capitol or district hospital?"

"Snow wouldn't let us take you back to—"

"Capitol or district, Haymitch?" she cut him off, asking this time with more insistence. She didn't really care much for the reason. She was disoriented—no idea where she was, or how she got there—she was vulnerable, and therefore she was weak. Weak wasn't acceptable anymore.

"Capitol. You've been out for about a week"

Haymitch stared that the girl in front of him. He had hoped that a long bout of sleep would've done her some good—that somehow she would reemerge as the gentler soul that she had been before the games. It wasn't a realistic hope; he had known that to begin with. All of the victors came out with scars of their own; Katniss's were just a little too deep for him to bear.

"Why are you here then? Come to fetch the president's dog?" she grimaced at him.

"It isn't like that, Sweetheart"

"Don't play with me. Why are you here?" Katniss spat her words at him. She was growing more hostile—Haymitch could tell that she was put off by her surroundings—he himself much preferred free air. But she couldn't leave, that fact stood. If Snow even allowed her to leave the hospital for the long-term, she would have to be kept in the Capitol where she could be watched.

She still looked like she had in the car after they had plucked her from the arena; she looked stony and unforgiving, like she would be ready to pounce at the drop of a hat.

But he supposed he had to shrug this off for the time being.

"They're having a victors' ball tonight. You're gonna have to be there"

Katniss let out a hollow laugh, this was becoming a signature now, he thought.

"And mingle with the people who threw me in the ring as if they're my equals?" she narrowed her eyes at him, "I could kill every single one of them. They're fat and they're shallow, and I'm supposed to dress up like their doll?"

Katniss was seething, her hands clenched into fists and her stance hardened.

Haymitch just looked at her, watched her tense up, and for the first time since she had gotten out, he looked at her for what she now was. Katniss was in there somewhere; she had to be, and to her, he was sympathetic—worried, even—but at the moment he was drawing a line.

Haymitch took a few steps into the room that sent Katniss back into the defensive. She shifted to stay out of his reach, but he grabbed her wrist and tugged her back into his path.

"Don't forget that _I _could kill _you_, _Sweetheart_" his eyes bore into hers.

Katniss seethed. She snatched her wrist from his grasp and let out a growl under her breath.

"Don't go separating yourself from the other victors. You aren't special, Katniss. You're a girl who's seen some terrible shit, but you aren't special—'cause you know what, Sweetheart? We've all seen the same, terrible shit. We learn to cope."

"You didn't lose the 'love of your life' thought, did you?" she said, mockingly. She threw Haymitch a smirk and continued to stare at him, sardonic humor playing about the glint in her eye.

"Bottom line, Sweetheart, you wanna get outta this city, you're gonna have to learn to play the game a little—you want to leave here in one piece, you're gonna have to learn to play it well. I'll see you at the party" he said, turning to leave, giving up for now on rising Katniss from the ashes the arena had left her in.

"And as for the love of your life," he said over his shoulder, "you didn't lose a thing, girly, you killed that yourself"

With that, Haymitch left Katniss standing in the hospital room alone as Peacekeepers filed in to escort her to a car that was waiting downstairs. Katniss protested, she hit and flailed, but whatever they had given her before had sapped her strength, leaving her to grudgingly be carried off by the hoard of Peacekeepers trying to sedate her.

A prick on the right arm was the last thing she felt before spiraling back into the fog.


End file.
